1492

by Mary Johnston

  Produced by Charles Keller, and Martin Robb

  1492

  By Mary Johnson

  1492

  CHAPTER I

  THE morning was gray and I sat by the sea near Palos in a gray mood. Iwas Jayme de Marchena, and that was a good, _old Christian_ name. Butmy grandmother was Jewess, and in corners they said that she never trulyrecanted, and I had been much with her as a child. She was dead, butstill they talked of her. Jayme de Marchena, looking back from thehillside of forty-six, saw some service done for the Queen and the folk.This thing and that thing. Not demanding trumpets, but serviceable. Itwould be neither counted nor weighed beside and against that which DonPedro and the Dominican found to say. What they found to say they made,not found. They took clay of misrepresentation, and in the fieldof falsehood sat them down, and consulting the parchment of malice,proceeded to create. But false as was all they set up, the time wouldcry it true.

  It was reasonable that I should find the day gray.

  Study and study and study, year on year, and at last image a greatthing, just under the rim of the mind's ocean, sending up for those whowill look streamers above horizon, streamers of colored and wonderfullight! Study and reason and with awe and delight take light from above.Dream of good news for one and all, of life given depth and brought intomusic, dream of giving the given, never holding it back, which would beavarice and betraying! Write, and give men and women to read what youhave written, and believe--poor Deluded!--that they also feel innerwarmth and light and rejoice.

  Oh, gray the sea and gray the shore!

  But some did feel it.

  The Dominican, when it fell into his hands, called it perdition.A Jewess for grandmother, and Don Pedro for enemy. And now theDominican--the Dominicans!

  The Queen and the King made edict against the Jews, and there sat theInquisition.

  I was--I am--Christian. It is a wide and deep and high word. When youask, "What is it--Christian?" then must each of us answer as it is givento him to answer. I and thou--and the True, the Universal Christ give uslight!

  To-day all Andalusia, all Castile and all Spain to me seemed gray, andgray the utter Ocean that stretched no man knew where. The gray was thegray of fetters and of ashes.

  The tide made, and as the waves came nearer, eating the sand beforeme, they uttered a low crying. _In danger--danger--in danger, Jayme deMarchena!_

  I had been in danger before. Who is not often and always in danger, inlife? But this was a danger to daunt.

  Mine were no powerful friends. I had only that which was within me. Iwas only son of only son, and my parents and grandparents were dead,and my distant kindred cold, seeing naught of good in so much study andthinking of that old, dark, beautiful, questionable one, my grandmother.I had indeed a remote kinsman, head of a convent in this neighborhood,and he was a wise man and a kindly. But not he either could do aughthere!

  All the Jews to be banished, and Don Pedro with a steady forefinger,"That man--take him, too! Who does not know that his grandmother wasJewess, and that he lived with her and drank poison?" But the Dominican,"No! The Holy Office will take him. You have but to read--only you mustnot read--what he has written to see why!"

  Gray Ocean, stretching endlessly and now coming close, were it not wellif I drowned myself this gray morning while I can choose the death Ishall die? Now the great murmur sang _Well_, and now it sang Not well.

  Low cliff and heaped sand and a solitary bird wide-winging toward themountains of Portugal, and the Ocean gray-blue and salt! The salt savorentered me, and an inner zest came forward and said No, to beingcraven. In banishment certainly, in the House of the Inquisition moredoubtfully, the immortal man might yet find market from which to buy! Ifthe mind could surmount, the eternal quest need not be interrupted--eventhere!

  Blue Ocean sang to me.

  A vision--it came to me at times, vision--set itself in air. I sawA People who persecuted neither Jew nor thinker. It rose one Figure,formed of an infinite number of small figures, but all their edges metin one glow. The figure stood upon the sea and held apart the clouds,and was free and fair and mighty, and was man and woman melted together,and it took all colors and made of them a sun for its brow. I did notknow when it would live, but I knew that it should live. Perhaps it wasthe whole world.

  It vanished, leaving sky and ocean and Andalusia. But great visionsleave great peace. After it, for this day, it seemed not worth while togrieve and miserably to forebode. Through the hours that I lay there bythe sea, airs from that land or that earth blew about me and faint songsvisited my ears, and the gray day was only gray like a dove's breast.

  Jayme de Marchena stayed by the lonely sea because that seemed thesafest place to stay. At hand was the small port of Palos that mightnot know what was breeding in Seville, and going thither at nightfall Ifound lodging and supper in a still corner where all night I heard theTinto flowing by.

  I had wandered to Palos because of the Franciscan convent of Santa Mariade la Rabida and my very distant kins-man, Fray Juan Perez. The dayafter the gray day by the shore I walked half a league of sandy roadand came to convent gate. The porter let me in, and I waited in a littlecourt with doves about me and a swinging bell above until the brotherwhom he had called returned and took me to Prior's room. At first FrayJuan Perez was stiff and cold, but by littles this changed and hebecame a good man, large-minded and with a sense for kindred. Clearly hethought that I should not have had a Jewish grandmother, nor have livedwith her from my third to my tenth birthday, and most clearly that Ishould not have written that which I had written. But his God was anenergetic, enterprising, kindly Prince, rather bold himself and tolerantof heathen. Fray Juan Perez even intimated a doubt if God wanted theInquisition. "But that's going rather far!" he said hastily and satdrumming the table and pursing his lips. Presently he brought out, "Butyou know I can't do anything!"

  I did know it. What could he do? I suppose I had had a half-hope ofsomething. I knew not what. Without a hope I would not have come toLa Rabida. But it was maimed from the first, and now it died. I made agesture of relinquishment. "No, I suppose you cannot--"

  He said after a moment that he was glad to see that I had let my beardgrow and was very plainly dressed, though I had never been elaboratethere, and especially was he glad that I was come to Palos not as Jaymede Marchena, but under a plain and simple name, Juan Lepe, to wit. Hisadvice was to flee from the wrath to come. He would not say flee fromthe Holy Office--that would be heinous!--but he would say absent myself,abscond, be banished, Jayme de Marchena by Jayme de Marchena. There werebarques in Palos and rude seamen who asked no question when gold justenough, and never more than enough, was shown. He hesitated a moment andthen asked if I had funds. If not--

  I thanked him and said that I had made provision.

  "Then," said he, "go to Barbary, Don Jayme! An intelligent and prudentman may prosper at Ercilla or at Fez. If you must study, study there."

  "You also study," I said.

  "In fair trodden highways--never in thick forest and mere fog!" heanswered. "Now if you were like one who has been here and is now beforeGranada, at Santa Fe, sent for thither by the Queen! That one hathindeed studied to benefit Spain--Spain, Christendom, and the world!"

  I asked who was that great one, but before he could tell me cameinterruption. A visitor entered, a strong-lipped, bold-eyed man namedMartin Pinzon. I was to meet him again and often, but at this time I didnot know that. Fray Juan Perez evidently desiring that I should go, Ithought it right to oblige him who would have done me kindness had heknown how. I went without intimate word of parting and after only acasual stare from Martin Pinzon.

  But without, my kinsman came after me. "I want to say, Don Jayme, thatif I am asked for testimony I shall hold to it that you are as goodChristian as any--"

 
It was kinsman's part and all that truly I could have hoped for, andI told him so. About us was quiet, vacant cloister, and we parted morewarmly than we had done within.

  The white convent of La Rabida is set on a headland among vineyards andpine trees. It regards the ocean and, afar, the mountains of Portugal,and below it runs a small river, going out to sea through sands with theTinto and the Odiel. Again the day was gray and the pine trees sighing.The porter let me out at gate.

  I walked back toward Palos through the sandy ways. I did not wish to goto Africa.

  It is my belief that that larger Self whom they will call protectingSaint or heavenly Guardian takes hand in affairs oftener than we think!Leaving the Palos road, I went to the sea as I had done yesterday andagain sat under heaped sand with about me a sere grass through which thewind whined. At first it whined and then it sang in a thin, outlandishvoice. Sitting thus, I might have looked toward Africa, but I knew nowthat I was not going to Africa. Often, perhaps, in the unremembered pastI had been in Africa; often, doubtless, in ages to come its soilwould be under my foot, but now I was not going there! To-day I lookedwestward over River-Ocean, unknown to our fathers and unknown toourselves. It was unknown as the future of the world.

  Ocean piled before me. From where I lay it seemed to run uphill to onepale line, nor blue nor white, set beneath the solid gray. Over thathilltop, what? Only other hills and plains, water, endlessly water,until the waves, so much mightier than waves of that blue sea we knewbest, should beat at last against Asia shore! So high, so deep, so vast,so real, yet so empty-seeming save for strange dangers! No sails overthe hilltop; no sails in all that Vast save close at hand where marinersheld to the skirts of Mother. Europe. Ocean vast, Ocean black, Oceanunknown. Yet there, too, life and the knowing of life ran somehowcontinuous.

  It wiled me from my smaller self. How had we all suffered, we the wholeearth! But we were moving, we the world with none left out, movingtoward That which held worlds, which was conscious above worlds. Longthe journey, long the adventure, but it was not worth while fearing, itwas not worth while whining! I was not alone Jayme de Marchena, nor JuanLepe, nor this name nor that nor the other.

  There was now a great space of quiet in my mind. Suddenly formed therethe face and figure of Don Enrique de Cerda whose life I had hadthe good hap to save. He was far away with the Queen and King whobeleaguered Granada. I had not seen him for ten years. A moment beforehe had rested among the host of figures in the unevenly lighted land ofmemory. Now he stood forth plainly and seemed to smile.

  I took the leading. With the inner eye I have seen lines of light likesubtle shining cords running between persons. Such a thread stretchednow between me and Enrique de Cerda. I determined to make my way, asJuan Lepe, through the mountains and over the plain of Granada to SantaFe.